Is there any reason, beyond corporate greed, for SMS messages to cost so much?
If I get it right, an SMS message is just a short string of data, no different from a message we send in a messenger. If so, then what makes them so expensive? If we’d take Internet plans and consider how much data an SMS takes, we should pay tiny fraction of a cent for each message; why doesn’t that happen?
Wait, I haven’t paid for text messages in probably 15 years. Where do they still charge for SMS? It’s usually unlimited with any plan that I’ve seen
Unlimited SMS is on most cell phone plans nowadays, at least in Canada.
On a slightly different tack: I run a website, and I choose not to implement SMS for notifications - only email. Email is free. Adding SMS, even at $0.007 per message, could add up to big bucks.
SMS are completely free? I mean yeah, they cost money back in 2009, but that was a loooooong time ago.
Wherever you are, you’re being completely screwed, yeah.
What are you paying for SMS? I pay 6 euro a month for unlimited sms and calls and 2 GB data. 50+ mobiel is my provider. Now they offer my plan with the first year for 2,5 euro. Dirt cheap.
its crazier than you think… the original sms messaging was sent over an already existent, in process data path… they didnt really have to add much to the system to accommodate it, yet charged an obscene amount per message
the answer is simple; because they can
It still does.
SMS is sent within unassigned space within management frames.
Cell works kind of like ATM - Asynchronous Transfer Mode, which unlike packet-switched networks, continually transmits frames (even empty ones), as a means of ensuring stable, performant delivery.
Like ATM, cell kind of does the same thing (that is, when it makes a connection).
Within those frames are segments which are allocated for different purposes, someone got the great idea to transmit bits within a segment that wasn’t yet assigned to anything by the standard.
Those segments can hold… 160 characters (IIRC), and for technical reasons, this became 140 characters (again, IIRC).
So whenever your phone pings a tower, those frames get sent. From a bare transmission perspective, there’s no additional cost. The cost is on the backend hardware that extracts the SMS and the routing of it. So there’s some cost, but at 10 cents per message, there’s got to be 9.9 cents of gross profit (just guessing).
Messages went from $.05, to $.10, to $.20 to send and receive. That was in the span of three years. All of the companies said it wasn’t collision. They just happened to arrive upon massive increases separately.
If I recall, one of the CEOs said “We’re raising the prices to save customers money. This way they’ll be an unlimited plan”
The telcos should have been broken up then. Instead we’ve seen even more mergers.
- Edit: forgot to include the years. This was in the U.S. circa 2005-2008. Telcos have moved onto other sleezy practices now.*
I know you meant collusion, but in case anyone else didn’t, it’s not collision.
Where are you that you’re paying anything extra for sms? They used to be expensive because they could charge that much, now that are included in even the cheapest prepaid plans. If you are paying per message, that’s a you problem and you need to find another wireless provider.
There is a large contrast in this regard between NA and Europe. In Europe data is dirt cheap and wifi is usually available anyways so messaging over whatsapp/signal/whatever is much more common than trying to use SMS. In America public wifi is extremely rare and businesses are so spread out that coverage is limited… people also tend to use iPhones which default you into their shitty iMessage - SMS was also traditionally much cheaper so it’s more of a habit in NA.
None of that is actually true as a contrast.
There are tons of free wifi networks from hotels to restaurants, etc.
None of what you are saying makes any sense.
There’s literally like four places with free wifi in my entire town. Most of the restaurants don’t have it, and we only have two hotels… neither of which has properly free wifi- you have to get a room to use it.
If you want to get technical, my town (really a village) has zero free wifi networks. It’s the larger city to my south that has all of the restaurants, hotels, retail, etc with free wifi.
I spend about £15 per year on my phone. No way that could be beaten with a contract. I’m still annoyed at how expensive it is though
Where did I say anything about a contract? I spend $1800/year for 4 lines, 3 personal and 1 work line. In the USA at least, prepaid beats postpaid/contract every day of the year. Every time I price moving all 4 lines over to postpaid to get easier access to esims, a little leeway on payment, etc, I always end up staying with prepaid.
If you need to send SMS commercially they’re still generally priced at $0.03 each. I just had to deal with that because some users will apparently only turn on MFA if they can get the codes by txt.
